


Talk to Me

by thechickandtheduck



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, set during season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-08
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-13 16:47:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4529565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thechickandtheduck/pseuds/thechickandtheduck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five conversations between Jemma Simmons and Lance Hunter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Talk to Me

_The Meeting_

“So, I guess I should blame you for bringing back my ex-wife. And getting me shot.”

Jemma looks up from where she’s sitting down at the kitchen area, drinking a beer, to see a man approaching her. She’s only been back at the Playground for a couple of hours, but she already feels terribly overwhelm by all the new people.

She looks up to the man talking to her: taller than her, and definitely not there before she left. Once he is closer, she recognizes him as the agent Trip had signaled as Bobbi’s ex-husband.

“I can take the credit from the wife thing, but I’m not sure about the getting shot part,” she tells him, confused by his statement.

“Eh, long story,” he says, waving his hand dismissively. He takes a seat next to her in the small kitchen area and grabs her bottle of beer, taking a sip out of it. She´s not sure she likes him.

“Lance Hunter,” he says, and offers his hand for her to shake.

“Jemma Simmons,” she answers, taking it.

“Heard a lot about you,” he starts with a bit of a mysterious tone. She’s not sure she likes that, either. Jemma waits for him to carry on, but he doesn’t, he just sits there, sporting a knowing smirk on his face. But she is not going to take the bait. Instead, she decides to play the omniscient card herself.

“And I,” she begins, and takes a sip of her beer, before continuing, “have heard an awful lot about _you_.” It’s a lie. She only knows what Trip told her, which is that Bobbi Morse and Lance Hunter used to be married. They are not anymore.  And they apparently don’t get along. But it works, because he instantly straightness on his seat, his posture changes completely and he is on the defense.

“Oh, really? Bad things, I assume, if they come from the ex-wife.”

Jemma shrugs noncommittally, and he looks positively annoyed now.

“Well, I’ll have you know, I don’t care at all what she tells people about me.” Oh, he cares, Jemma can see it all on his face. She can’t help the little laugh that escapes her. He squints his eyes at her for a moment. “Are you playing me?” he asks, and she suspects that by now he knows the answer.

“I would never,” she replies, handing him the rest of her beer. She stands up to leave, and takes a couple of steps before she hears him shout after her, “I don’t like you!”

_The Song_

“Just choose a bloody song!”

“I just want to pick the right one.”

They are sitting at the rec-room, drinking, as she often finds herself doing with Lance Hunter. They are playing twenty questions, and Hunter’s last question is giving her some trouble.

_“If I were a song, which song would I be?”_

It’s a good question, she reckons, but she doesn’t know if she can answer it. She doesn’t know him enough, she believes.

Fitz had asked that same question once, back at the Academy. She still remembers her answer. _The Scientist_ , she had giggled. He was annoyed by her answer, said she “ _hadn’t given it any real thought_.” She hadn’t, of course. She had gone for the obvious song, not even knowing the lyrics, but knowing it would exasperate him. _What song would he be now?_ _Does she even get to give him a song anymore?_

“Hey,” Hunter calls to her, “where are you?”

Right. She is supposed to give him an answer. “It’s a hard question,” she tells him. “What song would you choose for yourself?”

“Yeah, I’m not helping you,” he tells her and she rolls her eyes in annoyance. He catches her eyes and offers her a smirk that, by now, she has learnt to dislike. “Could it be possible? Have I found a question that the mighty Jemma Simmons can’t answer?”

She is really annoyed now. Sometimes she wonders why she even bothers hanging out with him. But then she remembers Hunter didn’t know her _before_ , so he is not exactly expecting anything from her, and he isn’t exactly one for deep conversations either, so she gets to avoid the things that she doesn’t want to deal with right now. Probably not a healthy philosophy, she thinks, but then her attention is back to Hunter.

“Do you ever get tired of hearing you own voice?” she asks him, her voice showing her irritation.

“My voice is beautiful, of course I don’t,” he replies, fully convinced of what he is saying.

“How you ever got a girl like Bobbi to marry you is beyond me, I swear.”

“Please, Bobbi was all over me back then, she practically begged me to…”

“ _Who Let the Dogs Out_!” she shouts, naming the most annoying song she can think of.

He stops talking immediately, looking at her with a hint of amusement on his eyes. “What?”

“That’s your song, because it’s annoying, like you,” she says lamely.

He opens his mouth to respond to her, but instead starts laughing. She wants to be offended, but he keeps laughing and it’s certainly an infectious laugh. She feels her own laughter threatening to take over and she doesn’t try to stop it.

Maybe it’s that, she thinks as they laugh like two crazy people, why she keeps hanging out with him.

 

_The Game_

“You didn’t just bloody said that!” he says, more like yells, and Jemma has never seen him so offended. Really offended, not the fake kind of offended he often displays when around her. He looks truly enraged, eyes wider than she has even seen them, his jaw set and his right hand gripping the back of the couch with more force than is required. “Take that back.”

She is tempted to do just that, but then she remembers no one can make her take an opinion back. “All I’m saying is maybe it’s time for him to move on from…”

“Don’t finish that sentence. Don’t you dare do it.”

She nods at him, slowly and deliberately. Then, she turns around from him to face the TV again. “Let’s finish the game, then,” she says, gesturing towards the flat screen with her hand. They are watching football together for the first time, Liverpool, Hunter’s team, facing the mighty Manchester United, which, of course, Jemma is rooting for. If only to annoy Hunter.

“You have no respect, no respect at all. To even imply that Steve Gerrard, Gerrard of all people,” he is saying to her, “must be past his prime, unbelievable.”

“I am sorry, okay? For making you this upset. Not for having opinions that don’t match your own, mind you.”

“I am this close, this close Jemma Simmons, from kicking you out.”

“What’s stopping you?” she asks, smug, because she knows he won’t.

“I miss doing this with someone who at least understands the rules,” and he sounds both annoyed and a little sad.

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” she answers, thinking back to the episodes of Doctor Who that she now watches alone. She turns around to offer him a smile, but he is paying his attention completely to the game. She smiles at him anyway.

A few weeks later, when it’s announced that Steven Gerrard will be living Liverpool to join Los Angeles Galaxy at the end of the season, Hunter spends the rest of the week ignoring her. She doesn’t say it, but Jemma is not particularly happy to be right, for once.

  

_The Beard_

“Do you think I should shave?” he asks, but she is not really paying attention. She is focused in everything else happening around her. She is tense and tired and Ward is here. He is here and she feels it all over her body.

“I think I really don’t care.”

She turns to look at him, then. Hunter doesn’t look great, still clutching to his side, where he was shot. He is sitting with her at the lab and she can see the bags under his eyes. She decides to humor him.

 “Although, you probably look like a twelve years old clean shaved, don’t you?”

He rolls his eyes at her, but there’s a tiny smile there, too.

“Oh, aren’t you clever?” he says but there’s no venom in his voice. “So, does it mean you do think I should shave, then?”

 “It means I really don’t care,” she says, and they don’t say anything for a while. She is too focused on Ward, still. Her skin can feel his presence. The air in the Playground has changed, too.

“Bobbi always liked my beard,” Hunter says a while later.

“Oh, so that’s why you want to shave. You are mad at Bobbi,” she says. He can be quite predictable sometimes.

“Look at you, I bring up Bobbi and you are suddenly interested in our little conversation.”

She can’t help but roll her eyes at him. “Well, of course, because I am very mad at her right now, but I still believe she is amazing, and she somehow thinks you are not _terrible_ , so you should be grateful.” She doesn’t add that she also thinks he is not terrible.

“ _You_ should be grateful,” he throws back at her.

“Great comeback,” she tells him, a little bit of a laugh on her voice.

“Anyway, I thought you were appreciative of beard, given the information I was able to collect recently,” Hunter replies, apparently unaffected by her teasing.

“What are you even talking about?” she asks, confused.

“You, checking out Fitz’s hairy face, just a few minutes ago,” he says, and he looks pleased.

 “I have no idea what you are talking about,” she answers, and she tries to sound indignantly, but she fails, because she wasn’t checking out _Fitz’s hairy face_ , but she wasn’t _not_ checking out _Fitz’s hairy face_ either. It’s complicated.

“I think you do,” he replies teasingly, but doesn’t comment any further.

“I won’t shave, though,” he adds after a while, “just so she knows what she’s missing.”

She rolls her eyes once more at that. “You are a child.”

She expects a snarky comeback, but instead, she turns around to find him looking at her, a serious expression on his face.

 “He did good, you know. Fitz. And I know it wasn’t easy, with Ward there…”

“Don’t talk to me about Ward,” she replies almost immediately, her tone sharp. If he looks surprised at her outburst, he doesn’t show it. He just nods at her and she feels guilty. It seems that guilt has become her default emotion, lately.

“Sorry,” she says, her voice softer, and she means it.

“You don’t have to apologize to me,” he tells her.

They stay in silence after that.

_The Hug_

“Is she…?” he starts, but his voice breaks before he can finish.

She can’t answer that. She doesn’t know what to tell him, but she knows she needs to give him something.

“She’s been stabilized. That’s good,” she says, and she is not giving him any new information, but is the only truth that she knows.  There’s a lump in her throat that’s making talking very difficult, but she manages to add, “We have to wait now.” Again, another truth.

“This is my fault,” he replies immediately.

She wants to tell him it’s hers, but he keeps talking.

“Why would she do that?” he asks, and it feels like a rhetorical question, but that one she can answer, so she does.

“She loves you. You would’ve done the same.”

“Love shouldn’t be like that,” he says and she wants to tell him that she agrees. But she thinks back to the boy she just sent into battle, and all the things she’s done to protect him. The things she would do to keep him safe. All he has sacrificed for her. And she can’t. Because it shouldn’t be like that, but it’s all they really know.

Instead, she puts hear hand on his shoulder and he turns to look at her. Their eyes meet and he understands. He nods at her, just a light movement of the head. And suddenly he is closing the space between them, his head on her shoulder, and he is crying. Jemma slowly puts her arms around him, letting him cry against her shirt. She rubs his back with her left hand, while she holds the back of his head with her right one.

They stay like that for what feels like an eternity. Finally, he pulls away from her, giving her a brave smile. And looking at his sad eyes, a hole in his heart that she knows too well, Jemma can’t help it.

She lies to him. “It’s going to be okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> I really need this show to give me this friendship next season. Whatever happens, I won't stop writing them. Thanks for reading!


End file.
